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Flamebird
Flamebird is a costumed superhero, operating out of Gotham City. She is currently a member of the Birds of Prey. = Background = "YOUNG HEROINE DEFENDS LONG BEACH." "LONG BEACH HAS HOTS FOR FLAMEBIRD." And on. And on. And on it went. For years, stories had trickled across the country about the grand adventures of costumed individuals with wide arrays of abilities, powers, and gifts. Calamities were averted, disasters alleviated. Many communities were entertained and amused by stories of grand battles taking place in the streets, in the skies, and so forth. Most never thought it would or could ever happen in their hometown. For the city of Long Beach, in southern California, it finally did. Mary Elizabeth Kane is the only child of Walter Geoffrey Kane and Priscilla Jenkins-Kane. The Kane family has a legacy of wealth and charity in the region, stretching back all the way to ancestors who settled during the Gold Rush. That wealth has been carefully and wisely managed over the years, and has slowly grown greater and greater with each iteration. Elizabeth, or Bette (which she prefers), grew up in the lap of luxury, blessed with more money than she could spend and parents who did everything they could to ensure she did not make the mistake of equating wealth with status. Aside from one or two minor mishaps as a child (including one particularly nasty squirrel incident), her early years were not terribly remarkable until she began taking tennis lessons. Her aptitude as a player was quickly evident, and her coaches encouraged her parents to keep her in the program for as long as they could. By the age of seven, Bette had taken such a liking to tennis that her first coach gladly passed her on to someone who taught more advanced classes. About the same time, she was enrolled in afterschool programs in gymnastics (yay!) and ballroom dance (ugh!). After all, sooner or later, she would have to be thinking about her debutante ball, even if it was still more than a decade away! But Bette didn't stress about the future. She threw herself cheerfully into both tennis and gymnastics, until the former stopped being a challenge and the latter was borrring. By the time she was twelve years old, she could hold her own on the tennis court, even against people who'd been playing longer than she'd been alive. And while she did not always win /every/ match, her average was still amazing at such a young age. People gushed and cheered when they came to see her, and she even did a round of interviews for various talk shows and sports programs and such. Then it all started to become tedious. Dull. The challenge had vanished. Gymnastics was almost the same, except she simply didn't do more than one set of competitions each year. On the cusp of adolesence, Elizabeth found herself increasingly bored. With school, with socializing, with physical activities. Her parents noticed, and tried a variety of tactics to get the girl excited about new subjects, new possibilities. One attempt included a trip to Gotham City during the summer of her twelfth year. Her father, and few other socialites from Long Beach, were graced with invitations to a Charity Gala, hosted by Wayne Enterprises. It was hoped that, at the very least, Bette might meet someone her own age, from a completely different circle, to become friends with. If only her parents knew how well it worked! A few hours into the event, well after everyone had arrived and contributed to the benefit, the ballroom erupted into chaos when a swarm of clown-faced thugs rushed in. They fired randomly at the ceiling and the walls, screamed at the patrons to get on the floor. Bette and her parents hunkered under a table for safety. A minute later, a lanky white-faced clown with a creepy creepy grin sauntered into the room. There was cackling and insane joking, and the thugs proceeded to take wallets, jewelry, credit cards, cash...whatever they could steal from the roomful of wealthy hostages. At first, it seemed the crazy criminals would actually succeed, but then everything changed. A window high on the wall shattered, and in a rain of glass shards, a monstrous man swooped like a demon into the thugs. Hot on his heels was a quicker, nimble young man with far more color and flair. Peeking out from a table, in the middle of a foiled robbery, Elizabeth got her very first glimpse of Batman and Robin. In what felt like the blink of an eye, it was all over, with property restored and police carting away the criminals. But all Bette could remember about that night was how intense and scary the Batman was, and how incredible his sidekick was. On the way home, she stopped fretting about the darker man and focused on Robin. On how he moved. How he fought. How dashing he looked in his costume and cape. How young he looked! Why, he could've been close to her own age, and he's out there, fighting evil! If it had been just the usual pre-teen infatuation, it would've ended there (or shortly after). But thoughts of adventure were not so easily dismissed. For the next year and a half, Bette contented herself with accumulating as much information as she could on the Boy Wonder. If her project happened to take the form of numerous photographs and images, well...she was young at the time, and he /is/ a hottie. She threw herself back into gymnastics, certain that a boy like that would only want the most graceful and nimble and limber of girls. At the age of fourteen, a new plan emerged. Any girl could do gymnastics and almost send love letters to some mysterious Batcave. But what was stopping her from being a superhero in her own right? Wouldn't /that/ prove to Robin that she was worth noticing? If her parents were surprised by a sudden change in attitude, an eager devotion to studying gymnastics, akido, and kickboxing, they chalked it up to puberty, and were simply relieved that the girl had stopped daydreaming about that Robin kid. With help from her maid, Bette quickly transformed an old tennis uniform into her first costume, and spent a full week deciding on a name. Finally, 'Flamebird' won out, and her plan moved into the next phase. Unfortunately, the next phase was something of a disaster. Armed only with her new costume and barely-honed combat skills, Flamebird tried her best to stalk the rooftops and shadows of Long Beach. Nobody bothered to tell her how big a city can be when you're on foot. Not to mention, she always felt a little silly running to stop a bank robbery, after the police have already arrived. It lacked something. It lacked tools. It lacked planning. It lacked speed. It lacked style. After roughly three weeks of scampering off after dark and failing miserably to have any impact whatsoever on the criminal activity of the town, Bette took a few days to rethink her strategy. She reopened her copious journal of All Things Robin and pieced together the missing components. Flamebird had yet to even be noticed, and a further delay wouldn't harm a reputation she hadn't acquired yet. She needed more than a costume, and a place to get her toys. While her maid continued to tweak and enhance her costume, she spent weeks looking for a tech-based laboratory that would suit her needs. Thaley-Smith Research fit the bill to a tee. It took some crafty manipulation to get her father to agree to offer substantial funding to the small lab, and it took some shameless flirting with the head geek in charge, a Mr. Jeff Engleton, to get the lab to agree to her terms. Her father is still under the impression that Bette is romantically interested in Jeff, who's not that much older, and that Bette is actively interested in a career in technology. Jeff, on the other hand, knows Bette's secret. She made the choice to trust him, as a way of making amends for initially misleading him with flirting. The two have become fairly solid friends, and Jeff keeps her informed of new progress as he refines the technology and gadgets she needs. He keeps her secret and keeps her supplied. In return, she makes sure the lab's funding stays consistent. Jeff has a few others helping him work, but only the sort more fascinated by the gadgets than the owners of said gadgets. By the time she turned 17, Flamebird had a solid stash of toys, a customized moped, a spiffy costume, and several other useful accessories, such as police scanners to help her find the crimes in progress. Yes, that's right. The Fiesty Flamebird! is a project that has been nearly five straight years in development and self-training. It should be mentioned that Elizabeth has a prediliction towards obsessive behavior. Flamebird made a smashing debut in Long Beach, by selecting a hostage situation as her first real venture. Dropping through a skylight and using a combination of smoke bombs, outrageously corny monologuing, and surprisingly effective akido, the young woman subdued three grown men and held the building secure until the police took over. The police were not terribly keen on the notion of a vigilante in their own town, but the press loved it. By the next morning, Flamebird was all over the newspapers and television shows. Bette basked in the attention, and as the school year wound down, she found herself with more time to devote to her heroic identity, and with every successful outing, she hung around long enough to keep the media frothing for more and more. Naturally, she understood she could not swoop to the rescue everytime, but by picking the right crimes at the right times, she was able to craft herself more than a little local fame and even a teensy bit of grudging respect from certain members of the police force. During the summer of her seventeeth year, she took a week-long vacation to Gotham City. Her parents let her go, assuming it was with friends. Her friends thought it was a 'family thing'. In reality, she simply wanted to find the object of her devotion and show him how worthy she was to fight by his side. Flamebird stalked Gotham's rooftops for several days and nights, only to hit a streak of luck on her fifth night in town. She was in the right place at the right time, and intercepted a trio of thugs running from a more grown-up Robin. (Flutter''siiiiiiigh'', soooo dreamy!) Had she faced the thugs alone, bad things may have happened, but she wound up stalling them just long enough for Robin to swoop in and cleanly finish things up. With the rush of adrenaline and a flick of her hair, she cheerfully introduced herself as Flamebird, and as his biggest fan and how she hoped-- "Go home. This isn't a game for kids." Just like that. He brushed her off, then zipped away into the night sky. To her credit, Bette went home. She spent nearly a month working through the natural progression of reactions. Heartache, mopiness, grumpiness, cussing. Predictable stuff. A lesser girl would've simply called it quits, but she couldn't give up that easily. The rest of the summer, she dedicated to improving her skill as a crimefighter instead of perking up her image in the press. She worked out an arrangement with her private school, and they agreed to waive her senior year of classes in exchange for a work-study program geared towards college credit and her future career. They even, reluctantly, agreed to let her spend the second half of the year in Gotham City, working for a new branch of her father's consulting firm. Thus, she could enjoy a less demanding schedule and be in the same place as her 'if only he knew it' boyfriend. So here she is. Long Beach's homegrown heroine, living large and looking for love by kicking as much ass as it takes to make an impression. Her solo career took a positive turn when she stumbled across Huntress and the Question, eagerly latching onto the more world-wise heroes as mentors, and soon, as partners in the never-ending war against injustice. = Personality = Best Intentions Above and beyond her desire to impress her Dream Beau (Nightwing), Flamebird is a strong believer in the concept of good and evil. She embraces the idea that good, decent people must stand up against the wickedness and evil in the world, and she honestly believes she can make a difference as a heroine. It is her responsibility to protect the innocent, no matter what the police or other heroes might try to tell her. Heart of Gold Bette has been very lucky in her life, and she knows it. She tries very hard not to let the circumstances of her upbringing be a hinderance to being a generous and caring individual. She is friendly, charitable, sympathetic, and sweet to strangers as well as her friends. The only exception, and the only real outlet for the natural moments of anger and irritation that always arise in life, comes in the form of criminals who need to be thwarted. Intelligent Smart, witty, clever, sensible. All of these may be connected to intelligence, but not all apply to Bette, unfortunately. Oh, sure, she's a very smart girl. She graduated from her high school in the top 3% of her class, and has several scholarship offers for prestigious universities lined up. The only problem is that she has no idea what career she would want to follow, if she had to give up her cape. Sheltered Life When you live in luxury, it's rare to be exposed to the other extreme. All her life, she has known privilege and pampering, all the best of the human experience. The most horrible thing she had seen for most of her life was an injured animal at the vet's office. Until she started playing hero, she had never seen poverty up close, or desperation, or hunger, or the brutal sort of greed that fuels most street-level thugs. She still has trouble believing that humans can, in the modern age, do bad things to each other. Media Hound Flamebird has been in the papers. Flamebird has been on television. Flamebird likes the media, and the media likes Flamebird. She's honest and cheerful and photogenic, and she answers every question she can with a grace and poise that even some Hollywood celebrities can't always manage. Even when she doesn't know an answer, or can't give one, she's able to give a response which will at least placate and soothe any ruffled feathers from reporters. Charismatic Both in and out of costume, Bette has a certain special charm about her. A presence born of openness, confidence, and cheerfulness. She has little trouble making friends, and even less trouble being liked by strangers. While it doesn't always work so well on the other end, with her costume on, and the right entrance, Flamebird can offer enough personality to at least make the baddies pause. Category:Hero Category:Taken Category:Features Category:Characters